What are the costs of health-improving interventions? This seems like an easy problem, just add up the costs. However, some costs are variable and some are fixed. Therefore, adding an extra person to the intervention may not equal average cost because fixed costs may not increase. In addition, there may be (dis)economies of scale or scope, which may (increase) lower costs for marginal patients.
a paper by De Elby et al. (2023) Aims to create a structure for better costing of health interventions, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The key definitions to consider are:
- enter.Hospital beds, every field officer, laboratory reagents, diagnostic tests
- output: measures each service (e.g. vaccination dose, hospital visit, medical consultation, screening or diagnostic test) or health intervention (e.g. primary health care: health promotion, sanitation and environmental health, maternal and child health and family planning, nutrition , immunization and infectious disease control)
- result: per beneficiary or per target individual.
- environment. By administrative structure (e.g. village, block, health center)
The paper has a very nice mathematical structure for how to measure costs and takes some key factors into account. The relevant figures are shown below.
The full text is here.
